Aspect ratio driving me mad

Hi all.I live in Australia and have been having a hard time getting my head around this aspect ratio stuff. If you can be bothered I will give you the story of whats happening. I am recording my footage in dv wide screen mode with a sony HVRA1P. Next Step, I capture it into Final cut express HD. Once in, it is automatically given the anamorphic tick. So far, so good. Then Once I was happy with my project I saved it as a QT file - self contained. This is where the problems started. When I played the file back in QT, it was squashed into a 4:3 window. And when I burnt it to DVD, it also wouldnt play back in proper 16:9. Even though it was recorded in 16:9, and edited in 16:9.
I was then told by the supplier of my gear that I would need a little program called "Anomorphicizor". Basically what it involved was dropping my QT file onto this icon and doing a 'save as' on the file. this actually fixed the problem. It played 16:9 on a widescreen and on a 4:3 tv it letterboxed - exactly what I wanted it to do. However it Is another step that takes time and because I have lots of projects to output, it becomes a longwinded process.
Then one day I typed into google "16:9 files in QT". And I fell upon a site that had the following information:
Exporting 16x9 QuickTime Final Cut Pro
One of the really confusing issues about working with 16x9 in Final Cut Pro, is when you go to export a QuickTime movie and it comes out 4x3 instead of 16x9.
When exporting a Final Cut Pro movie, the system will use the current sequence or clip settings. If you are working in DV-standard def, your footage was brought in at 720 x 480.
Final Cut Pro uses an anamorphic aspect correction feature to make it easy to edit in 16x9. The problem is, when you export a QuickTime movie you end up with a movie that is tall and skinny squeezed into the standard 4x3 player window.
So, instead export your final movie using QuickTime Conversion, and then specify a size of 865 x 480. Then, you will have a QuickTime movie that plays within a 16x9 window.
This was very interesting reading, but still a bit confusing. Firstly it said that if I was working in dv standard def, my footage would be brought in at 720x480. This is not the case though. In my window the frame size is 720x576. It also suggests that I export my project using quicktime conversion and specify a size of 865x480, which will give me a 16:9 window. It did'nt say which compression settings to use so I just used DVPAL. Any I tried all of this and low and behold it actually paly back correctly and I didnt have to put it through the "anamorphicizor" program.
Now, if you are actually still reading all of this, then thankyou. I guess to sum all of this up, - What is the best way to save my fcp project so that it will play back 16:9 in QT, and on a dvd player.? Thankyou in advance, Matty

Thanks again Dave for getting back to me. All of your information is fantastic and is slowly starting to sink in. though if you could stay with me a tiny bit longer that would be great.
Firstly: When I drop my QT file into the anamorphicizor program, the result is great. it plays back widescreen on a 16:9 set and letterboxed on a 4:3 set. This is exactly what I want it to do. The only problem is that its another step in what is allready a fairly time comsuming process, considering there are a lot of projects that i have to create. If I was somehow able to bypass this "anamorphicizor" step, it would be great.
I think I mentioned to you that I did come across a web page that talked about exporting from QT. It suggested to export my final movie using QT conversion and then specify a size of 865x480. Now I wasnt sure if this setting was for ntsc or pal, but i tried it anyway. And it actually worked. It played back widescreen on a 16:9 set and letterboxed on a 4:3 set. - and I didnt even use the "Anamorphicizor" program. Is this the answer?. Is the setting of 865x480 correct? Are there other settings in the QT conversion stage that I need to be aware of - like the compression setting - least amount up to best quality? Am I asking too much of you Dave? I think I can answer that one! Thankyou in advance. Matty
Your resolution is 720x576 regardless of whether it
is 4:3 or 16:9. That's the native resolution for PAL
DV/DVD, and other metadata are used to determine
whether it is 4:3 or 16:9. If the clip is 4:3 then
it should display at 768x576; if it is 16:9 it should
display at 1024x576. See, the native pixel count is
actually narrower (in your case) than 4:3 (for me
it's actually wider). So if you look at an
anamorphic clip, it will be squeezed into the 720x576
narrower-than-4:3 window. But that's OK. All of the
data is there; it will be stretched back out when you
play back from a DVD. If you are going to a DVD, you
don't really care if the data files play back
stretched or squeezed or whatever on the computer, so
long as they get encoded correctly and behave
correctly for the DVD.
The Anamorphicizer doesn't do any conversion to your
file; all it does is to add something to the
QuickTime container so that iDVD will identify the
clip as widescreen (since iDVD doesn't give you an
option to do that yourself). I suspect that it just
adds the "wide" atom to the end of the file, but I
don't know that for certain. In any case, the movie
data itself is not changed, and I wouldn't consider
that to be any kind of "conversion". So don't worry
about recompression or anything like that from using
Anamorphicizer.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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What are the ideal specs for a DigiBeta master tape when authoring a "widescreen anamorphic" 16:9 SD DVD (original aspect ratio is 14:9)?

I just received the masters for a new SD DVD. I would like to author a "widescreen anamorphic" SD DVD horizontally squeezed widescreen image stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. (On 4:3 displays, mattes should preserve the original aspect ratio. On 16:9 displays the image will fill the screen at the highest possible resolution.)
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Original Aspect Ratio: 1.55 (14:9)
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Pixel Aspect: NTSC - CCIR 601
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Display Format: 4:3 Letterbox
MY GUESS AT IDEAL TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS (for a DigiBeta, that is):
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Original Aspect Ratio: 1.55 (14:9)
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Pixel Aspect: Square
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Please feel free to ask for clarification or further information you need to answer my question.
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Best, Noetical.
BTW, I can't wait for the day when everything has gone digital and we get digital intermediates instead of tapes to digitize!

Hi Nick...thanks for taking the time to reply to my question.
Nick Holmes wrote:
What you have there is a mess.
NTSC pixels are never square.
NTSC is 720x486, even when it is Anamorphic.
You shouldn't be using an already letterboxed master to make an Anamorphic version. Get the master that was made before the letterboxing stage.
When you make an Anamorphic DVD it should display as 16:9 full screen automatically on widescreen TVs.
The same DVD will automatically letterbox on 4:3 TVs.
Um yeah...duh. That's exactly what I was trying to explain in the preface of my question. I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear...all these things you mention are the reasons I'm putting together a list of the technical specs of the DigiBeta I need so I can have them send that instead of the stupid letterboxed version.
Look, I'm sending this request to some intern at their offices in England, asking for a master with which I can make an Anamorphic DVD. They already sent me this master, which as you and I both agree is an idiotic asset to use for these purposes. As such, I was hoping for advice on a more precise way of requesting the master that I need than asking for "the master that was made before the letterboxing stage." Upon reflection, perhaps I'll just do that. If you or anyone else has a suggestion about something I should add to my request that would improve the odds of them sending the tape I need, please repond. Thank you!
BTW, It's been a long time since anyone has responded to something I've written or said as though I'm an idiot. I remember now that I don't really like it. (Moving along...)

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While I am here asking - another 2 small questions that have been bugging me:
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Hi Ann,
Your tip saved me a lot of time indeed....!
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1. Copy/Paste Attributes for all the video clips (these do not transfer);
2. As you suggested used the whole of the old sequence as a nested sequence in the new one, eliminating the video altogether.
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It's ben amlong Xmas weekend and endless hours spendt on this project. Yaikes!
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Thank you,
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http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/quick-time-pro.html

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Hello all,
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If I cant use compressot to crop how can I get a final m2v file that has a aspect ratio of 16:9 and doesnt get sqeezed...
Im sorry for this long post, just wanted to be clear on everything, please help!
Thank you! Danielle
Im using FCP 5.1, compressor 2 and DVDSP 4, footage came from regular dv camera (obviously set to some weird widesreen format) and I captured it directly into FCP

Thank you for your reply!
It worked! thank you so much, ive been struggling with this for a while now! I defenitely have a loss of quality, I will have to watch it on my big plasma at home to make sure it is still ok.
Can I ask you another question?
When I export using compressor I get horizontal lines in the video, no matter the settings, Ive tried: dvd best quality 90 minutes 16:9 preset and customized a dvd 16:9 one with very high bit rates, and different GOP settings.
when I export with quicktime reference and import into DVDSP, it looks much better with their build in encoder.. since I have this loss of quality now, any suggestions on my compressor settings?
Ive already resigned to 2 DVD's with the main movie on one and the extras on the other, so we can go pretty high with bit rates.
Thanks again!
Danielle

Aspect ratio problem in Windows Media Player for DVD from DVD Studio Pro

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RD

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Is it possible to customize aspect ratio?

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Pl see MOS Doc 420518.1 - section 10

Aspect ratio problems

I've built a DVD with 16:9 DV movies and menus made in Photoshop using first of all the PAL DV 16:9 preset and latterly a custom size in the ratio of 16:9.
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I suppose what I'm asking is what settings do I use in Photoshop to produce menus for a 16:9 project.
Help! Thanks!
Message was edited by: bladerunner1712

Thanks for your input, that clarifies things although I'm not sure I described the problem properly. I think that my Photoshop menus ARE being displayed properly and the problem is actually with my 16:9 DV movies or DVD SP itself. Here's what's happening ...
A 16:9 DV movie set as a menu background looks more like 4:3. The same 16:9 asset used as a button on that menu appears 16:9 (hurrah) but the same 16:9 asset used as the target of the button show up in the simulator as more or less 4:3!
I should have mentioned before that the problem only appears in the simulator and using the (sofware) DVD Player. Movies and menus all look 16:9 played on hardwrae players. What's going on.

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hey there Derek100,
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I think I'm onto something. I exported form After Effects as an Mpeg2-DVD so I end up with
*.m2v files.
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Hi!
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HERE'S THE SOLUTION TO THE ATI BLACK BARS PROBLEM
It took months for me to find this on the web, so I thought I would share it here, the first hit for 'ATI Black Bars windows 7' on Google.
1) Open Catalyst Control Center
2) Use the drop down box at the top to click on Desktops and Displays
3) At the very bottom where your monitors are displayed, click on the little black arrow and click "Configure". Note that if configure does not appear, you are clicking on the wrong black triangle (you must use the one in the very bottom section).
4) This will bring up properties for that display. Choose "Full Screen" or "Maintain aspect ratio", whatever your preference. If you are getting black bars on all sides, you are likely on "Centered".
5) IF THE OPTIONS ARE GREYED OUT, as they were when I first tried this, the workaround is to lower your display resolution before attempting the above. Once you have changed the setting, you can return your display resolution back to whatever you like and the setting will remain as your display changes (movies, games, etc).
Hope that helps!!
This DOES NOT WORK for DirectX9-based ATI graphics devices on Windows 7. In fact, there is currently NO SOLUTION to this problem if you are using a DX9-based ATI graphics device on Windows 7.
ATI has refused to release any proper Windows 7 drivers for their DX9-based devices, so if you are running Windows 7 with such a device, then your only choice is to install the "legacy" Vista driver onto Windows 7.
If your computer is a laptop, this situation is made even more convoluted by the fact that ATI's driver packages refuse to install on laptops unless you use a third-party utility called "ATI Mobility Modder" to first modify ATI's driver package. Apparently ATI wants you to get the driver from your laptop manufacturer, but since most laptop manufacturers have not bothered to release newer video drivers that really isn't a reasonable expectation on ATI's part.
There is a bug in ATI's "legacy" Vista drivers on Windows 7 which hides the scaling/stretching options that should be present. Normally you would find these options under the "Notebook Panel Properties" node of the treeview in the Catalyst Control Center. They show up there fine using the same driver on Vista on the same hardware, but they are mysteriously absent when using the same driver on the same hardware on Windows 7.
It looks increasingly unlikely that ATI will EVER update their "legacy" drivers for their DX9-based graphics devices. It looks even more unlikely that they will ever develop proper Windws 7 drivers for these devices. Instead they are focusing all their efforts on their newer DX10-based devices and drivers.
This leaves users of laptops with DX9-based ATI graphics in a particularly frustrating and stupid situation.  DirectX 9 graphics devices are perfectly adequate for running Windows 7, and therefore they should have proper Windows 7 drivers released for them by the manufacturer (ATI). I shouldn't have to buy an entirely new laptop just so I can get a DX10-based video device just so I can get the stretching/scaling options in Windows 7. If this were a desktop PC, I could just swap out the video card, but that's not an option on a laptop.
Therefore, it falls on Microsoft to either (1) put pressure on ATI to fix their broken "legacy" Vista DX9 drivers to add back the scaling/stretching options when running on Windows 7, or (2) add an OS-level user option (independent of drivers) that can be used to control the resolution scaling/stretching.
My specific situation:
I have an HP Compaq 6910p laptop with the ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 graphics chipset (DX9-based). I am running Windows 7 x64 RTM. Neither ATI nor HP supply an official Windows 7 driver for this graphics chipset, and the driver supplied by Microsoft is bare-bones (no advanced options/settings like ATI's Catalyst Control Center offers). So I installed the latest (9.11) ATI "legacy" Vista x64 CCC package (after using ATI Mobility Modder to modify it so it will actually install on the laptop).
I run a lot of classic video game emulators and older games that use old 4:3 resolution modes like 800x600 or 1024x768. When they switch into these modes, I get huge black borders around all edges of the screen (top/bottom/left/right) and a tiny little viewable area right in the center of the screen. I have to squint to see anything. What I want -- and I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation at all -- is for the image to be stretched to fill the screen WITHOUT being distorted to change the aspect ratio. In other words, when I switch to any 4:3 mode (like 800x600) I expect the image to completely fill my screen vertically (all the way to the top and bottom edges) but with black bars along the left/right edges so that the aspect ratio is still truly 4:3. This is how I was able to make it work with Vista on this same laptop before, so I expect to be able to do the same thing using Windows 7. Unfortunately there is currently no way to do that, which completely destroys my abillity to use lower resolution modes comfortably on this laptop at all.
Well you can work past that actualy, but the option is annoying to do everytime since when i go to a lower resolution everything becomes blurry and so on.
Heres what you do when you use a dx9 graphics card.
1. lower you resolution one step down. I use 1680x1050 so i went to 1600x1024.
You should have the black bars lower bottom on the side different to everyone.
2. Since CCC dosnt give the scaeling option under "Notebook & Panel Properties" in Advanced View
    you change to basic and do it under Quick Settings.
3. take "Notebook & Panel Properties" on the right side in the box click on " Resize the desktop to fit the display panel" and click go change it to "Resize to fit the display panel"
NOTE. the trick is that it changes back automaticaly to "Do not resize" when you have your maximum resolution that is recommended by W7 thats why you need to take some other resolution.
I know its annoying to change it all the time but its the best there is right now and atleast you got the games fit to the screen and you can change the resolution back each time but then you got to do the resize with CCC again when you want to play some games.
Hope it was a help to you.

Wrong aspect ratio for imported widescreen videos

When I import some videos (home made) they show up as the wrong aspect ratio. For example, the latest one is 1026x576 in the folder, which is correct, but shows up as 1456x576 which is too wide. How can I prevent this? Incidentally, I have checked the file in itunes folder using quicktime, and it is correctly sized at 1026 wide. Strangely, itunes thinks it's wider. Also, this is a problem I have found in previous versions of itunes. Phil

Hi, it's very strange. When I get time I will try different settings on Handbrake to see if there is any improvement. However I have even had this problem when outputting from fce. It seems to be a bug in iTunes. At least I'm not alone in experiencing the problem. Regards Phil

Output aspect ratio

I'm trying to maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio and its driving me nuts! I have a short project in FCP. Sequence is set to 720x480 anamorphic 16:9.
Im trying to export for web. Ive tried compressor and QT conversion.
Ive set the output size to 640x360
Ive checked the box, "preserve aspect ratio using letterbox"
at first I got lines on the top and the bottom but the picture was still too tall and skinny.
after changing the size to 640x360 anamorphic, now I get black lines on the sides but the picture is STILL too tall and skinny.
any suggestions?

Go back to the original file that you exported out of Final Cut Pro.
Open the file in QuickTime Player.
Press the command and J keys to open the Properties window.
Click the Presentation tab and activate the checkbox next to *Conform aperture to:*
The setting will jump from Classic to Clean and the video will be displayed in a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Press command and S to re-save the file with this setting.
This file will now be the basis for exporting a file for the web, which can be done right in QuickTime Player by opening the *File > Export for Web* item in the menu bar.

Aspect ratio driving me mad

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